Tornado-torn military museum reopens today

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/STATON BREIDENTHAL --4/22/15-- Air Force veteran John Stauffer checks the Iraq war display he put together Wednesday at the Museum of Veterans and Military History in Vilonia. the museum is scheduled to reopen Saturday after the original museum was damaged in last year's tornado.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/STATON BREIDENTHAL --4/22/15-- Air Force veteran John Stauffer checks the Iraq war display he put together Wednesday at the Museum of Veterans and Military History in Vilonia. the museum is scheduled to reopen Saturday after the original museum was damaged in last year's tornado.

A group of veterans stood in a circle inside the newly constructed Museum of Veterans and Military History in Vilonia earlier this week, telling war stories and "picking on each other," as one of them put it.

They were taking a break from arranging the exhibits, which was the last step in rebuilding the museum, which had been damaged beyond repair in the EF4 tornado that ripped through the small town on April 27 -- one year ago Monday.

Even though the museum didn't open to the public until today, it was obvious Wednesday that it has already become what it once was for this group of men: a place to congregate and "tell the big stories," Korean War veteran Harold Clevinger said.

"What I enjoy most about this is the time that some of the old vets get together," Clevinger said, motioning toward his friends from across the room. "In the old one, we had a table that we could sit around and drink coffee and talk. Now, we'll have it all back."

Events today will make the reopening official. At 11:15 a.m., approximately 100 motorcyclists will ride from Jacksonville to the museum, located at 53 North Mount Olive Road in Vilonia. Throughout the rest of the day, there will be a raffle, live music and a USO-style show. The $10 admission will go toward continued rebuilding costs, said Linda Hicks, the museum's founder.

Hicks and the veterans working on the exhibits earlier this week were quick to note that the new museum -- with its sturdy block walls, concrete floor and tin roof -- is distinctly different from "the old place," as they all called it.

The museum's previous home was a small, two-story white house on South College Street that was more than 100 years old. The house served as a dormitory for the Arkansas Holiness College in the early 1900s and was later used as an orphanage.

In April 2011, it was hit by a tornado and deemed uninhabitable. It was left abandoned until October of that year, when Hicks and her crew began the process of turning it into a museum.

"We loved the old place," Hicks said. "We had it fixed like we wanted it. We thought we were safe. We thought it wouldn't get hit twice."

When a tornado struck it a second time in 2014, the old place -- and many of its contents -- were destroyed.

"This front part was knocked over; it just collapsed in," said Vietnam War veteran Steve Hillman, illustrating the damage using a painting of the old museum that hangs in the break room of the new building. "It blew out all the windows. I lost some Viet Cong medals. Three of them got -- whoosh, sucked out the window."

After midnight on April 28, Hicks and her husband, Paul Hicks, braved a lull between storms, drove to the museum and grabbed guns, uniforms and anything else they could fit into their Toyota Camry. But Linda Hicks still mourns the loss of what they couldn't save.

Some of what they lost included a Purple Heart, dog tags, letters between soldiers and their loved ones, and a bullet that had been loaded into the gun of an Iraqi War veteran when he struck a landmine. The losses accounted for about 20 percent of their inventory.

They lost a lot, but "we got a lot," Linda Hicks said. "I keep saying it -- we're grateful for what we do have, or we wouldn't be able to open. We'll recover; it's just going to take time."

And though the new building doesn't have the history that the old white house did, "it's got a new life," Paul Hicks said.

Besides a new building, the museum has some new features the old one didn't have, including air conditioning, heat and the ability to withstand 220 mph winds.

St. Louis-based Complete Block Co. sold the materials used to build the new museum at cost, and it provided free labor, Linda Hicks said. The 40-foot by 60-foot structure was constructed on land donated by Vilonia resident Charlie Weaver.

The museum, which showcases items from every major conflict of which the U.S. has been a part, also has new items to display.

The most-recent piece is the uniform of Sgt. Jason Swindle, a 24-year-old Cabot soldier who was killed in Afghanistan in 2012. The uniform of Master Sgt. Dan Wassom II will soon be on display, too. Wassom, a member of the Arkansas National Guard, was killed in Vilonia last year when the same tornado that destroyed the museum hit his home.

On Wednesday, the group of guys, who represent veterans of three wars -- Vietnam, Korea and Iraq -- and all branches of the armed forces, were working on separate exhibits displaying items from the conflicts of which they were involved.

Paul Hicks, a Vietnam veteran, was enabling the mock gunfire and flashing lights in a room covered in bamboo that was supposed to replicate a Vietnam combat scenario. Clevinger put up framed pictures he took when he was a soldier in the Korean War, and John Stauffer, a retired airman who served in Iraq, had just completed his Iraq War exhibit.

Among other things, Stauffer's display included photos from his time in Baghdad, his uniform, a letter from his wife and a makeshift tent similar to what troops would've slept in.

Linda Hicks said Wednesday there's more work to be done, adding that getting it together by today would be "pulling off another miracle."

"That's one thing we do --we just kind of pull together," she said.

When the Museum of Veterans and Military History reopens today, and remains open every Friday and Saturday after that, Hicks said she hopes to get back to her old mission -- for the museum to become a steadfast part of the community and provide a place where the young can interact with the old.

"We're hoping the kids will grow up loving this museum and that they'll make sure it never goes down," Hicks said, looking out across a field stretching to the north. "We hope that it will be part of their family.

"A lot of us will be stepping out, and we're hoping they just carry on, so it will be here for their children and their children's children," she continued. "We hope that they love it as much as us older ones do."

Metro on 04/25/2015

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